The question mark comes because we’re 30 days into 2018 and I’m just now writing those words here. ARGH. Okay, I’ll take my abuse now—bring it on.

But, while you’re doing so, watch this video (made on time, but I’m giving you the link late) and enjoy well wishes from my family!

2017 was a good year, but man did it fly by! It marked an entire year since my daughter moved out of the house and to La-La Land. L Hush. That’s just dust in my eyes!

But we’re deep into 2018, so let’s roll!

I had Auburndale CityCon on my calendar for January, but multiple emails to them have gone without a response…so I guess the convention is no more?

This weekend, though, I’m a comic guest at FLORIDA POP CON, an inaugural show that isn’t that far from me! It isn’t “just” a comic con, it’s got a little of everything. There will be actors there from The Walking Dead…if you’re into that kind of thing. 🙂 I’ll also have something new at the show (read on!)

In April, I’ll be a comic guest at the one and only Daytona Comic Con. One of the very best in the area, it’s jammed packed with comics, always a good thing for the comic fan. I know I always walk out with near as many comics as I walked in with! If you’re a comic fan, make the drive and attend this show!

In August, I’ll be returning to the Pikeville Comic Con in Pikeville, Ky. This will be their 2nd annual show, and the first one was so much fun and so well organized. It was hard to believe it was the first one. But I’m looking forward to a return trip!

In November, I’ve got an informal invite to be a comic guest at ComicConWay, a show I’ve been itching to get to for several years now. They’ve had quite a few of my comic making pals there, and they all rave about what a good show it is. Plus, I just love Arkansas.

While the date isn’t set yet, I’ll be appearing at the Altamonte Springs Collect-A-Con, another great show very local to me (I always tell my comic reading students they should go!)

Hoping to add a few more to the calendar and am hoping to add shows in GA and SC. Just hoping to hear positive things back from the organizers of those shows.

Hoping this year is good to me for creative work, too. This weekend, I’ll debut the collected version of TINY! Deonna has a full time gig now that she’s done gone and got herself graduated…but I keep the bug in her ear to do something else.

We’re about halfway done with Cat & Mouse #1. I’ve got to say I’m super-stoked to be working with such a great art team: Dean Zachary, Barb Kaalberg, and Kevin Gallegly are really turning in some superior work. Here’s page 1 just to whet your appetite! We’re…VERY close to launching the Kickstarter for it, so I’m telling you now to sock away a few bucks for it so that you can help us out.

While I can’t exactly talk about the project yet, I’m working with longtime pals and spectacular artists Jaxon Renick and Chuck Bordell. Really close to getting a colorist lined up…but he hasn’t confirmed yet (maybe he’ll do so when he reads this! Haha)

This post is not for the weak at heart. It will contain gruesome images of my skint (yep, and that’s how we SAY it down South!) knee and me moaning in pain on the floor! Don’t say you haven’t been warned.

My skint knee. It actually looked worse than it was!

One of the joys of having a high school student in the band is acting as band chaperone. For those who might not know (I didn’t), it’s exactly what you might expect—and so much more. It’s a combination chaperone and heavy metal band roadie!

The chaperone part is yeah—just watching them and making sure they don’t do things they’re not supposed to do; like slip off under the bleachers and start necking (oh come on—you’re not THAT far removed from high school that you don’t remember that!). The roadie part is moving stuff from here to there. Most of the heavy stuff is handled by the “equipment crew,” a bunch of dads who really just assist the students who do most of the grunt work themselves. Sometimes, though, chaperones have to kick in, particularly with our really large pit. No, not the race car pit, but the music kind (no, I didn’t know either): it consists mostly of xylophones, but there’s a full trap drum set, a gong, keyboards, and other such stuff. It’s not as easy to push that stuff through the grass/sand as you might think—I’ve done it.

This is what I’m talking about–how the coolers are loaded on a dolly…full of water!

Anyway, the whole point this blog is that at a recent competition I was lugging water around (it was terribly hot that day) on a dolly (heard some folks refer to it as a “hand cart,” but there’s not much “cart-y” about it!); two round containers FULL of water (meaning, heavy), lugged around on the dolly.

So I’d dragged this dolly to one place—it was the wrong place. I had to take it all the way back to where I had started. I hadn’t been there very long and it was time to go again. By this time, I’m beginning to get a bit tuckered out. As we head down a slight incline, I go to change the hand that’s pulling the cart (changing from right to left, but not sure that matters) and the cart begins to set up on me. Not a big deal, except it catches the back of my heel and I begin to fall forward…and bring the dolly with me, full water containers and all!

Immediately I felt more embarrassed than hurt, but it didn’t take long for me to realize blood was running down my leg and my arm hurt like crazy. They took me to first aid there at the competition where it was mostly band kids having issues with the heat (including Brett a little later). They looked at me, cleaned the knee a bit, and then suggested I get the arm x-rayed. I laid down in the floor while waiting to figure out how I’d get there (see the pic)…I’d ridden the bus with the band and didn’t have a vehicle.

Here I am, ice on my arm, trying my best not to moan!

A fellow chaperone had driven her vehicle and she took me and BJ to the local Urgent Care where they x-rayed my elbow to tell me it wasn’t broken and it was probably just a deep muscle bruise. But I’m telling you, it hurt like crazy.

In fact, I went to follow up with another x-ray on Wednesday (four days later) because I still had a lot of pain. Nope, still wasn’t broken; the doctor said it was probably just a deep bruise and—here it comes—I was old and didn’t heal as fast.

Three weeks later and my arm still experiences some pain if I move it the wrong way. I’m frequently being told by some of my more smart-mouthed friends “don’t move it that way, then.” Sometimes the pain is still sharp.

I’m the proud owner of both a girl child and a boy child—and they couldn’t be more different from each other if we had tried. (okay, okay, neither of them are actually a “child” anymore…just roll with it) Thing is, we didn’t do anything different with the two when they were babies.

I can remember before my girl child, my firstborn, arrived. We were in California at the time and were offered untold suggestions, hints, advice—all un-solicited—but all welcomed from veteran parents. Most of the advice was good as it was practical: avoid these foods, watch out for this diaper, be sure this happens before you leave the hospital. It came from the voice(s) of experience, and they were passing that “been there, done that” experience on to us.

One common thing we read, though—and we read a LOT—wasn’t about practical stuff, it was about how not to brainwash your kid. Okay, that’s not what they said, but it was essentially the meat of it. In a nutshell, the argument was that kids turn out the way they do because of the way we raise them. If we provide all gender neutral colors, etc., they won’t grow up like the “stereotype.” Whatever that means.

So, when my first—the girl child—came along, we did much of that: we avoided pink, and girly, froufrou stuff. Yeah—like that mattered. As soon as girl child was old enough to pick what she liked, she went pink. ALL pink! EVERYTHING was pink because that is what she wanted. We didn’t push it on her, she chose it!

She’s since moved on from pink, preferring the more subtle purple, but still…the whole point of this was that all those magazines and books we read about what to do when raising the girl-child were so much hooey. She was born with her unique personality and she wanted to do the things she wanted to do…and that was to be a pretty in pink princess. (she’s still my princess, but that’s another blog for another day)

My boy-child is a completely different story. Like his sister, he chose his own unique style, and gravitated towards blues. (today it is blacks and greys) When BJ re-decorated his room—without talking to him about it first (it was supposed to be a surprise from him, moving from his “little boy” bed to his “big boy” bed)—he was very blunt. She asked, “what do you think?” His response? “I don’t like it.” And yes, we’ve got it all on video.

Moral of the story? All the so-called child-rearing experts (the social ones, not the medical doctors—them, we love!) are full of so much hot air. Dress your kids the way you want to when they’re babies. Put them in dresses, or spots outfits—they’ll make their own choices when they’re old enough to figure it all out. God’s already got a plan for them, so when they DO make those choices…roll with it. It’s all good.

So many of you already know that Dad has been in the hospital since Jan. 23rd. As of this writing, he’s out of ICU but still in an ICU-step-down unit. Mom has been with him the entire time and Angie, my sister, has been with him most of that time. I drove up with my family on the 25th, arriving on the 26th—it’s a 14 hour drive from Orlando—and we stayed for nearly two weeks.

While he’s doing much better, he’s still in the ICU step-down unit and still has a long road of recovery in front of him. We’ve been very happy to get reports that Dad is highly motivated in tackling his physical therapy to get full movement back.

What happened?

Well, Dad has this rare disease called sarcoidosis. If you google it, you’ll find there are fewer than 200,000 cases in the U.S. In the U.S. the most common demographic is overweight, black, women. Yeah, Dad is none of those.

But Dad’s case was even more rare as it often affects the respiratory system. Dad’s case struck his pituitary gland, destroying it. For those of you more keen on biology than others—yeah, you can’t live without the pituitary gland. It’s basically a CPU for the endocrine system. It hit Dad in 1984 and we nearly lost him then.

What it’s done to him, though, is effectively destroy his natural immune system so that he’s more susceptible to sickness.

Taken in November 2016. All of us!

And that’s what got him this time; he got both the flu AND pneumonia at the same time—and it just really whacked his body. Because of the shock to his system, he got sepsis shock…and then that’s when he got what the doctor called “a systemic shutdown,” meaning, he was so sick his body just began to shut down. That’s when they had to insert a ventilator.

While he struggled with the pneumonia in his lungs, his blood pressure dropped, his heart rate was all over the board, his kidneys failed…and while that haven’t confirmed it for sure (they said it was something they could worry about after he gets out of the hospital), it even looks like he may have had a minor heart attack and a possible mini-stroke.

Yeah…it was pretty bad. So much so that for a brief couple of days, the doctors weren’t really offering us a lot of hope.

Once his flu fever broke, though, the doctors had to play a balancing game between getting liquid to and through his kidney and drying out his lungs. That wasn’t easy for them. They ultimately decided that his kidneys could take the most punishment and that they needed him off the ventilator and his lungs in better shape. Fortunately for Dad, that’s what happened…and then he began to fight some of these other things.

So 18 days later Dad is working to regain much of his physical ability that simply atrophied quickly as he laid in bed unable to do anything for so long. Thank you all so very much for the prayers. We believe they were heard! As I said earlier, he’s still in the hospital for a reason—so any and all continued prayers are highly welcomed!

Happy New Year everyone! I know some of you are ready to put 2016 behind you, but I’m ever the optimist so I’m anticipating 2017 to be a great year. I’ll add the obligatory “I can’t believe it’s 2017 already! Where has the time gone?”

I don’t have a lot of convention appearances lined up just yet, but one is fairly immediate. On Jan 19-20, I’ll be a guest at Auburndale City Con (near Lakeland, FL). The other shows I have lined up are: Daytona Beach Comic Convention on April 23, MegaCon in Orlando in May, Wizard Orlando in August. I’ll do something for FCBD (Free Comic Book Day) in May, but don’t have that hammered down yet. Wherever I end up, it’ll likely be with my pal Barry Gregory—three years running. Last year his lovely and talented wife, Jenni joined us, as did Thomas and Rene Florimonte. So, I’ll be somewhere, just not sure where yet. I hope to add a few more shows to the list, and I’ll be sure to let y’all know.

On the family front, Brittany is starting 2017 off in LA as she seeks work there. I’m anxious to learn all that she’ll be getting to do this year and anticipate seeing her on the screen before the year is up! Brett will become a senior this year—OH MY!—and he’s becoming quite the young man. I know I’ve mentioned it before, but one of my weekly (mostly) pleasures is my Friday night game session with Brett. Now that Brittany is in LA, she’s talked about joining us…if she can figure out the time difference. BJ’s still working hard on her Young Living business venture and we’re both pretty excited to see what’s in store for her there. If you haven’t “liked” her FB page yet, I’ll ask that you please go do it now: CLICK HERE!

I’m pretty excited about several things on the creative front. I’m working on two projects with long time friend and artist Dean Zachary. I’ll give you more as they develop, but a peek at them looks like: the first we’re calling SilverBlade and the high concept is Indiana Jones meets John Constantine. Joining me and Dean on SilverBlade is Barbara Kaalberg on inks and Thomas O’Connor on colors. You should see an image on this page somewhere. The second project Dean and I are working on is a revamp of Cat & Mouse, a series I did with the talented Mitch Byrd (and Steven Butler on some of the early issues) back in the late 80s/early 90s. Dean and I have made changes and updates, obviously, but the spirit will remain. The first story is about human trafficking, something I’m pretty passionate about. While Barb inked the image you see on this page, we’ve got another super-talented inker in mind to join us here, and the coloring is done by Kevin Gallegly.

Demon’s Tails Ad

I can’t mention C&M without folks thinking about Demon. I’m excited to say that Paul Pelletier has agreed to reunite with me and produce a second Demon’s Tails mini-series. As I write, we’re still working on the story details, and—of course—the story will have to move at Paul’s pace, but I’m excited that we’re getting started on it. Thomas Florimonte has agreed to round out the reunited team as inker. So, yeah, I’m pretty excited about it. Long time pal Barry Gregory colored the image you see here, and we’re currently planning for it to be part of the Gallant Universe where Barry and Steven have just wrapped up their incredible John Aman, Amazing Man series. If you haven’t seen it, you need to check it out!

There’s nothing really specific that I can mention, but I’ve been talking to Barry about some pretty cool comic-related projects. I’m looking forward to more on that end. Sorry about being so mysterious about it. You know that you’ll be the first to know when I can talk about it…but the possibilities are pretty exciting.

Hope your year looks to be as exciting as mine. Happy New Year one and all!

Where oh where has the blo-ger gone? (to the tune of “where oh where has my little dog gone”). Yep, it’s been a full month since I’ve posted here. As I frequently tell my students, there’s no excuse for submitting work late. I’m just glad that my blog isn’t for a grade or for a paid assignment!

It has been a hectic month…and I’ll talk about some of that in a minute, but since I’m at it, I figure I’ll just do my annual year in review!

Though many have decried 2016 as a terrible year (the deaths of many celebrities seems to be the main cause of this), 2016 was a pretty decent year. I was fortunate to be able to do a big handful of comic conventions this year, including ACME Comic Con, Daytona Comic Con (in both April and December!), Lebanon MegaCon, FCBD, MegaCon (Orlando), Friendly Neighborhood ComicCon (Paragould, AR), SanDiego ComicCon, Wizard Richmond, SmashCon, and Clermont Comic Con. While they were all good fun, the highlight was probably the SDCC where I got to go thanks to my pal Barry Gregory of Ka-Blam. It was my first visit there in over 15 years and I got to see a lot of pals and colleagues I have seen in about that same time. Of course, while I love comics and enjoy talking with readers of my work (old and new readers alike), one of my enjoyments of comic conventions is to see and hang out with friends, particularly those other oddballs who also make comics.

Another highlight was the Kickstarter I ran with super-talented artist Deonna Herrold and the following release of our comic TINY. The responses, while few, have been overwhelmingly positive. The most common question I’m asked—which is good for a writer’s ego—is will we do more. The answer is that I don’t know. Deonna is still in school and the work on Tiny was time-consuming and she wants to give it her all in finishing. Once she graduates, she has assured me she’d let me know if she’s up for more. You can grab a copy of Tiny #1here at IndyPlanet in either print or digital. It will also be available on Comixology in just a matter of days. #2 will follow.

I got involved in a critique group that has really helped me on the writing front. We may have actually started in ’15, but this year we were active and it helped me a lot! I really appreciate the other three writers!

Taken in November 2016. All of us!

The stats of my blog aren’t available to me yet as wordpress hasn’t sent me the annual report just yet—still 5 days left in the year. 2009 likely remains my “best” year in terms of numbers. I blogged a lot that year about writing (sometimes twice a week) and I spoke at multiple writer’s conventions, generating a lot of traffic. As noted above, I sometimes go an entire month without blogging. >sigh<

It continued to be mostly good in the classroom. The animation portion of my class has been removed and I now focus 100% on comic writing. I’ve been doing that for just a couple of months and I really enjoy the content a lot more. My students are still about 85-90% uninterested in comics; most of them want to be screenplay writers. Though I have seen an uptick in fledgling novel writers (why they’re at Full Sail, I don’t know). It’s greatly illuminating about comics today and I wish there was a way to get the larger comic-creating community to take note: the most common “negative” comments I get from these students is that after reading a work, they have no idea who the characters are/were, where the story took place, or any of the basics of story-telling. I find it’s because many “modern” comic writers are so afraid of words they don’t give readers the information they need to understand the story.

Ah well.

The biggest change in the Mann household this year is that my daughter has made the big move out to Los Angeles to find work in the entertainment industry (good news! She’s already been approached for work in January! Woo-hoo!). Momma is going to hang with her a bit to help her get settled before coming home. It will not be easy for her to get on that plane, so prayers and good wishes are greatly coveted from you about that.

Byhalia Christian Writers pals

Progress on Cat & Mouse (novel)

When a burglary goes awry, the thief ends up with an orphan...and a whole lot of trouble.

Progress on THE INTERNS

A young superhero is required to do his internship in Oxford, Mississippi.

THE GIFTED

In a day when Christianity has been outlawed, what's a Christian superhero to do?

About the picture

The picture at the top of my blog was taken while I was the editor at The Piggott Times, a small weekly newspaper in Piggott, Ark. You'll note on the bookshelves behind me at the bottom right, a "Chuck E Cheese" picture of me with my daughter, Brittany. Just to the left of that shelf, you'll notice my old Linguistics textbook--Dr. Foster would be proud. On the shelf above that, it is difficult to see, but an Arkansas Razorback "hog hat" sits proudly. It is one of the originals! On the shelf to the left of that is a book on Lincoln--I'm continually trying to enlighten folks as to the evils of this former U.S. President. You'll also notice the fan. The publisher was too cheap to spring for decent air conditioning, and in the hot summer months it was a literal sweatshop.